Stargate - Defender II
Alternative title: Defender 2
Platform: Commodore 64
Gametype: Undefined
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1984 Atarisoft
Status: Full Game, Findability: 3/5

Coding: Tom Griner
Graphics: Tom Griner
Sound: Tom Griner

Back in the 1980’s, Atarisoft were doing official conversions for the Commodore 64. Stargate was one of them!

We learn of this conversion thanks to Mat Allen who has documented the conversion briefly in Digital Press.

It was suggested that Steve Evans originally programmed the game for Atarisoft, but the division collapsed in the wake of the game market collapse in the 80’s.  Steve then took his game and eventually had it released under the name of Guardian for Alligator Software.

But in 2013, Kurt Woloch discovered a photo at CES84 by GCC which shows a portion of Stargate running on a C64.

The game and panel looks very different to Steve Evans version, so does this confirm that Steve’s Stargate was a hack of his Guardian game?    Well Rich Stevenson says that Steve gave him a copy of Stargate with that very name, to give feedback and improvements.  So Steve himself did name Guardian originally as Stargate.   It means that possibly Alligata probably got Steve to change the name, so they could make it an unofficial conversion.

What of this other version though?  It is possible that the CES photo was taken just before the gaming crash, of which this may have been a casualty and one of an official licensed conversion.

However, Jeff Minter spotted and made a connection with the Vic 20 conversion – highlighting that the score panel areas look very similar.  This suggests that the game was very likely written by Tom Griner.  Jeff also added that he saw an interview with Tom, where work on a C64 conversion was mentioned.  Looking at Tom’s other C64 work, we can also see a slight bit of familiarity with Robotron and the Joust game which is also missing.

Just how far did it reach and was this photo showing a completed version of the game?  We need to find Tom to try and find out more and about what happened to this promising looking conversion.

Contributions: Mat Allen, Martin/Stadium 64, Kurt Woloch, Jeff Minter, Rich Stevenson

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Save the humanoids from the impending aliens in the sequel to Defender. The task is still rescuing humanoids before Landers can turn them into Mutants, while avoiding and shooting other foes, however you must now carry humanoids to safety through the Stargate of the title. 

Entering this Stargate not only warps you to the nearest humanoid in jeopardy, but can also warp you ahead (while on the first 15 levels) if you enter it with 4 or more humanoids, and give you extra lives if you warp with 10 humanoids, so there is a trade-off between guaranteeing the safety of existing humanoids, and trying to advance your position

There are more enemies on screen than ever before. The Inviso button makes you invisible to enemies, but also to yourself, so you will have to follow your bullets to work out where on the screen you are.

Trivia

1001 Video Games

The Arcade version of Stargate appears in the book 1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die by General Editor Tony Mott.
Developer commentary

Eugene Jarvis, creator of both Defender and its sequel Stargate, says that although the gameplay and coding of Stargate is more refined, he prefers the relative simplicity of the original Defender.
[Source: Retro Gamer Magazine, Load 55]

Title

Defender II is also known as Stargate. Williams determined that the game's name infringed on an existing trademark (apparently for a board game), and the name was changed.

Despite Williams' assertions, though, the game's name was not changed immediately after the arcade release. The disc reveals that Williams programmers had to go to Atari to reprogram the title screen for the already-finished 2600 version... the problem is, the game was in release as Stargate for the 2600 later in the year - the Defender II variant didn't show up in stores until 1988. Unless the 2600 game was programmed and released at the same time as the arcade game, Williams' timeline is faulty.

Awards

Retro Gamer Magazine
(Issue 46) - #12 in a “Top 25 Atari 2600” Games poll


http://www.gamesthatwerent.com/gtw64/stargate/
http://www.mobygames.com/game/c64/stargate
